Sunday, September 11, 2011

What language shall we use - A sermon preached on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Delray Beach, Florida

19 Pentecost – Proper 13 – September 10/11, 2011

Solemn Observance of the 10th Anniversary of
September 11, 2001

Romans 14:1 – 12; Ps. 103; Matthew 18:21 – 35

Preacher: The
Reverend Canon William H. Stokes, Rector

What language shall we use?

Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive..."

Last
month, we took our St. Paul’s J2A Youth group to
New York City
on and Urban Adventure….This group aged 15 – 18 went for a weekend to have fun,
to be together; to learn city skills, work on interpersonal skills and have
conversations about faith.

On
Saturday morning, we went down to Ground Zero….It is a construction site
now. A new steel and glass tower is
rising on the very place where the twin towers and other World Trade
Center buildings once
stood. It was teaming with people that
Saturday morning….We kept silence and said a prayer in front of Ground Zero as
people whirled around us. We then went
into St. Paul’s
Chapel directly across the street from Ground Zero. St. Pauls’ Chapel is a part of the Episcopal Church.
St. Paul’s
became a sanctuary and an oasis for first responders throughout the aftermath
of 9/11. Today, in addition to
functioning as a church, St. Paul’s
Chapel has become a shrine to 9/11,

It
is likely most of us remember where we were on 9/11. Even today, ten years
later, 9/11 stirs up things in us, painful things; grief, sadness, anger,
loss. We live with an ache. We also live with fear.

Today,
this 10th anniversary, we are forced to wonder: can we get through
this day without incident? What do we do
with these feelings? How do we manage
them in a way that is healthy? Can we
manage them at all? What are the lasting effects and what is the lasting legacy
of 9/11 in each of our lives?

I
need to say it now: As marred by tragedy
as that day was, not all the events of September 11, 2001 were dark…There were the
heroic actions of firefighters and EMTs, of policemen and military personnel at
the Pentagon, of ordinary people helping one another.

Many
people asked on that day, and many people continue to ask, “Where was God?” My
response is always, right there; right there in the selfless sacrifice of all
those people who did not think of their own safety, but acted for the sake of
others at great risk, and in far too many instances, at the highest cost. Greater
love hath no man than this, Scripture says, than to lay down his life for his friends... (John 15:13). On September 11, 2001, that greater love was
shown over and over and over again….That’s where God was….That’s where God
always is….That is my conviction.

God
could also be found in another place on that day. God could be found in the maternity center at
Boca Community Hospital. As the world reeled in anguish from the
attacks, Laurie A., wife of Eric, mother of Lee, Torie and Elizabeth, gave
birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl; Caroline…I went to the hospital that
day….

I
went because I always try to go to the hospital when a baby is born to one of
our members. But I also went that day
because I needed that affirmation of life….God was there that day….God could be
found in that hospital in the love of that family….God was there in the grace
of that precious baby child Caroline. In the midst of the solemnity of today’s
observance, we will sing to her and celebrate her birthday and remember that
God was there too that day!

Archbishop
of Canterbury Rowan Williams was in New
York City on September 11th. He was at Trinity Church Wall Street, very
close to Ground Zero. At the time, he
wasn’t the Archbishop of Canterbury, he was the Archbishop of Wales. A
thoughtful writer and theologian and a deeply spiritual man, he had been
invited to speak at a conference on spirituality hosted by Trinity Church. Courtney Cowart whose video reflections on
9/11 we are going to present after the service, was at the same conference.[1]

When
the first Tower fell, everyone in that surrounding lower Manhattan area had to evacuated. From his experiences
of that awful day, Williams wrote a book, Writing
in the Dust: After September 11[2]. It’s a short book, but very
thoughtful.

Two
insights in William’s book struck me as particularly important. In the first chapter of the book a chapter
titled “Last Words,” Williams made the unsettling observation that there was a
great contrast of language that day between the terrorists who used religious
language to justify their heinous acts, and the non-religious language of those
on planes and in the Towers who used their final moments to express their love
to a person dear to them. It was a contrast between what he labeled the
“murderously spiritual and the compassionately secular.”[3] Williams writes, “Someone who is about to die
in terrible anguish makes room in their mind for someone else; for the grief
and terror of someone they love. They do
what they can to take some atom of that pain away from the other by some
inarticulate message on the mobile….”[4]

In
the book’s second chapter, “Answering Back,” he has another insight about
language. He writes, “The day after, there was a phone call from Wales, from one
of the news programmes, and I faced a familiar dilemma. The caller started
speaking to me in Welsh, which I understand without difficulty, but don’t
always find it easy to use in an unscripted and possibly rather complex
discussion. I had to decide: if I answered in Welsh, the conversation
would go on in Welsh, and I had some misgivings about coping with it.”

“I
am spoken to; I have some choices about how to answer. It seemed a telling metaphor at that
particular moment,” Williams observes. “Violence
is a communication, after all, of hatred, fear, or contempt and I have a choice
about the language I am going to use to respond. If I decide to answer in the same terms, that
is how the conversation will continue.”[5] It’s a provocative observation. Two wars and a high number of military and
civilian casualties have occurred in the wake of 9/11. Terrorism has not abated
but, instead, has grown and spread since that tragic day ten years ago. What language will we continue to use?

Of
course, there were many and various responses to 9/11, and there continue to
be….And responses differ and especially if one is directly connected to the
events of that day. The anguish is
still raw for those who were there; for those who escaped and survived; for those
who lost loved ones in New York, Washington or Pennsylvania….None
of us can speak for them. None of us
can, or should tell them how to feel….how to respond, how to grieve.

Still,
if we are honest, we must acknowledge that 9/11 seduced too many of us into
modes of lasting hatred, fear, anger, prejudice and vengeance …Because of the
despicable actions of zealous Islamists, we paint with a broad stroke and are
angry with all Muslims. Hate crimes
against Muslins in this country have soared since 9/11. There are on-going battles about having
Muslims in our communities, over allowing them to build Mosques.

In
many ways, this is an understandable and very human response to acts as heinous
as those which took place on 9/11. Still,
we must ask ourselves, what has happened to us as Americans since 9/11? What
language do we speak? Is it the language
of our core documents: We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal. That
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…[6]Or
has anger and hatred led us to stray from these?

What language do
we speak as Christians? I can’t help
but be struck by the appropriateness of the two readings for today. I didn’t pick these readings for today’s
service. They are appointed by the
lectionary according to the normal cycle for Year A. Today, Christians across
this country, not only Episcopalian; but Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic,
Methodist and all the others who share this Common Lectionary are hearing these
very same lessons….

They
are hearing Paul’s words to the Romans, We
do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we
die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the
Lord's (Romans 14:7 – 8). That’s Gospel news to me as I think about
those who died on 9/11. They inspire me
as I consider those who made the ultimate sacrifice…We do not live to ourselves… Each and every fireman who entered the
inferno of the Twin
Towers and the Pentagon
knew that. The passengers who fought
with the highjackers over Pennsylvania
knew that.

But
we must also hear Paul’s challenge from his Letter to the Romans: Why do
you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your
brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God
(Romans 14:10).

How can we not pass judgment on those who
acted with such brutality, with such a callous and heinous disregard for human life? How can we not despise them? And yet, their judgment does not belong to
us. Judgment belongs to God alone. If we insist on judgment, what do we do
about the judgment which must be rendered upon us as a nation that has dropped hundreds,
thousands, of bombs; launched drone missiles, since hostilities began in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing innocent
civilians, many of them women and children, labeling these casualties with the
misnomer “collateral damage?” What
about the language of judgment here?

And
what do we do with today’s Gospel reading concerning forgiveness? What about Peter’s question, “Do we need to
forgive as many as seven times?” (Matthew 18:21) What about Jesus’ response, which really
doesn’t mean “seventy-seven times;” it means we are to forgive our brother or
sister countless times! (Matthew 18:22).

And
that parable, about the unforgiving servant!
How could we have that parable on this day of all days? (Matthew 18:22
ff). Who is that unforgiving servant in
the story? Who are we in that
story? Are we the one’s owed the
debt? Are we the ones who show
mercy? Are we the ones to whom mercy is
shown? Oh, this painful, difficult
business of forgiveness! Aren’t there some things we are allowed not to forgive?
How can we ask or expect those whose husbands or wives or sons and daughters
were brutally murdered on that day to forgive?

I
can’t answer that question. Each person
must answer that question for him or herself….Each and every one of us must
always answer that question for him or herself.

I
can, however, ask another question….What is the cost to us when we don’t
forgive? What do we do to
ourselves? Do we not allow ourselves
then to be victimized over and over again by a reliving of the wrong done to us? Do we not then give tremendous power to those
who have wronged us? What kind of people
will this make us? What kind of people
has it made us? Forgiveness is not only
a matter of grace we extend to others, it is an act of grace we extend to ourselves
and a means of grace by which God heals us and makes us whole….This is the
language and the reality of forgiveness.
Does this language, this Christian language, have anything to say to us on
this day?

On
Friday a story appeared in Episcopal Life On-Line about events that day at
Ground Zero and at St. Paul’s
Chapel. I want to share some of that
article with you. It’s titled “Responding to the 9/11 attacks, St. Paul's Chapel answered
act of evil with language of love.”[7]It’s a story of contrasts. Here’s some of what it says:

In the days after the World
Trade Center
towers fell, heaven and hell stood side by side in lower Manhattan.
St. Paul's Chapel in New York became the focal point of a
remarkable effort to support the workers at nearby Ground Zero after the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Hundreds of volunteers from myriad
vocations, religions, ages and income levels ministered to firefighters,
construction workers and others working in what they called “the pit.”
"For me, it became apparent very
early that the pit was a symbol of suffering and death and darkness, which I
began to equate with Good Friday, and St. Paul's was the symbol of new life,
rebirth and hope, and therefore a symbol of Easter,” said the Rev. Fred
Burnham, retired director of the Trinity Institute at Trinity Episcopal Church,
Wall Street, in Manhattan.

Burnham and Courtney Cowart, who handled
grants for spiritual formation and development at Trinity
Church, were preparing to videotape
meditations with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (then archbishop of Wales)
and others when the terrorist attacks instead sent them running for their
lives.
Directed by security to a rear
stairwell after the first tower fell, Burnham recalled, “we were choking and
having difficulty breathing there as badly as we had inside the building.”
Realizing they were likely to die, the group shared a profound moment that
changed his life. “What we discovered in that moment was
how love and compassion transcend all evil,” Burnham said. “It was in that
moment that I realized that I was not afraid to die but also recognized that
the real meaning of life was in relationships. … It was as if out of the
darkness of that near-death moment came total realization both of love but also
of liberation from fear.” That
liberation soon led to action.
On Sept. 12, 2001, Cowart said,
Williams preached: “Yesterday, we were spoken to in one language, and we now
have a choice of in what language we respond to the conversation that was
initiated by the attack.” And he asked, “What is the language of Christians?” At St.
Paul's, the language was love.Burnham and Cowart helped organize the volunteer effort and,
later, to spread the word about what happened at [St. Paul’s].
Burnham recalled firefighter John
Misha telling a reporter [at St. Paul’s
Chapel]: “Every day, I spend most of my time on my hands and knees, digging for
body parts with my bare fingers.” Then
he went on to describe evil, darkness, suffering, death, in all the vivid
language of somebody who spent that much time in the pit and who knew hell.
Then, like he was rising out of hell, he stood up as straight as he could,
threw out his chest, sucked in air, threw his arms into the air, and with a
huge grin on his face and tears running down his cheeks, he said to her, “And
then I get to come here....”
“'When I walk in the front door of
this place, dripping with blood, they hug me, they kiss me, they bring me in
and treat me like I'm a member of the family. I have never known such respect
anywhere ... And I sit and cry and weep, and I am born again."

Master crane operator Joe Bradley recounted
sitting on a curb in the middle of the night when young Salvation Army
volunteers, sporting pink hair and bandanas, gave him water and cold towels and
put dry socks on his feet. He thought about when the Yankees won the World
Series. “I'd always thought that's what New York was all about,
those kind of heroes,” he said. “It was the little girl with the pink hair that
became my hero that night.”
"I've learned a lot about good
and evil," he said. "I've learned a lot about the power of prayer. I
never knew anything about Episcopalians or Presbyterians or gays or people with
nuts and bolts through their cheeks or those Broadway people, but now I know
them all. ... They are the heroes."
“Standing on St. Paul's porch and
viewing the pit, one could see two choices for the world,” Cowart said: “The
future that leads to the destruction of the site, or the future that leads to
the kind of community and life that we saw was possible at St. Paul's [Chapel].
...”[8]

Today we
remember a very dark day and a series of murderous, inexcusably hateful
acts….It is, in many ways, a Good Friday experience….But our story, our
language, refuses to leave it there….Oh we acknowledge the reality….We are not
in denial….We know there was death and nightmarish suffering….We know there is
grief and nightmarish suffering still….But we are a people who place our hope
and confidence in a God who is Love….We are Easter people and we declare that the
falling towers are not a final word, as devastating as their fall was to
us. No, we declare, that light which was
shown on 9/11 in the heroism and self-sacrifice of so many; in the passengers
who fought with the highjackers over Pennsylvania
to avoid further catastrophe. We declare
that that light rose from the dust and ashes of New York and Washington and
Pennsylvania, refusing to be consumed; that that love and light, Easter love
and Easter light rose and reclaimed that awful day and reclaims it still; that
it reclaimed us then and reclaims us now as people of the light, as people of
the always victorious Easter light.

[7] Sheridan, Sharon
“Responding to the 9/11 attacks, St. Paul's Chapel
answered act of evil with language of love” which appeared on Episcopal Life
On-Line on Friday, September 9, 2011 – See http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_129711_ENG_HTM.htm